A very green christmas

As most of you know i spent my Christmas holidays in Perth, West Australia. I'm going to give you a little map so you know where it is...

Melbourne to Perth, 4 hr flight

Xmas eve was spent here in Melbourne. I made a nice veggie meal for Paul and myself with accompanied with wine, of course. It was strange having a quiet one, since i'm used to always spending christmas eve with my second family and friends.

Christmas day; after packing our shit at a turtles pace and tidying up my place, we made our way through the quiet city for the airport. I was really excited, even just for the long(ish) flight to Perth. As soon as we checked in we celebrated our official holiday with a terminal drink. The plane ride was quite fun. After my "special requested" veggie plane meal ( which i love and get very excited for ) we asked for the drinks list, to which our stewardess ducked down as if to tell us a secret and let us know that drinks were free and we should " stock up". Well! That's all i need to hear. Needless to say, i got a bit tipsy on our flight.

In the terminal finally on vacation!

When we landed, Pauls oldest sister Naomi picked us up. She appologized for Allie and thats when i realised that she brought the puppy ( really 2 years old ) and i spent the 20 minute ride home cuddling and kissing and petting her in the backseat. This is my first real full-on dog contact in almost a year. I was in heaven. *Naomi has a 12 year old daughter, Zoe, who has mild Ausburgers and Allie is her special needs dog.
We stayed up and chat a bit before going to bed in our guest room. Ouuu.

Boxing day; had a wee bit of a sleep in and spent the morning watching the cricket ( its no ice hockey ). After a short while Naomi returned from the beach and soon Zoe's dad dropped her off. It was really sweet, it takes Zoe a bit of time to remember who you are, but soon she remembered her Uncle Pauly with a bit of help from "si senor", a phrase Paul taught her and she always associates with him. A big grin appeared on her face and she was soon showing him her christmas gifts and the many,many books she's read/reading.

Zoe and uncle Pauly

We cleaned up a bit and packed some treats for lunch, packed us all in the car, including Allie, who despite being a working dog full sized lab, thinks she's a lap dog - like i minded. We were heading to the Manuel, paul's mum side of the family, xmas lunch/picnic. It was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot.

Zoe playing with her boat and scaring the ducks away

Pauls sister Naomi and Zoe

Zoe, Naomi, and Allie!

Lots of presents were given, i received some unexpected gifts too that were absolutely lovely. After our meals and the gifts were given out, paul, sam ( pauls other sister emma's boyfriend), and i went down to the "lake"(puddle to canadians) with Zoe to take her remote control boat out for a spin. It was really fun and i think i may ask for one next year.
When we were all finished with the picnic, paul and i went back with naomi to her place and we played some scrabble. Em and Sam came over shortly after, we shared far to much pizza and kicked on. Played another game of scrabble and decided to get crazy and play Wii. Paul was really skeptical about the console, BUT as soon as he swung that tennis racket...he was in. I cant remember how many hours we all played for. I had a serious baseball series with Sam, where im confident i pulled some muscles. I got a little over-confident and challenged Paul to boxing and i looked like a spastic while wheezing and sweating my ass off, BUT i won. After that exhausting match, 3 am, we were KOed and slept.

Needless to say, we all looked and felt like hell the next morning.

I look dead. Zoe woke Paul up early while i slept in and out of spite he annoyed me with the camera flash...that or he thought it was funny

I had definite Wii-injuries, so bad that i could barely lift my arms above shoulder level without winging. Em and Sam drove us to get coffee and then dropped us at Paul's dad's, Colin, house to go for lunch. We were given a nice tour of the house, so much character in it, and then i was face with it; the Wii! The source of my wiijuries. I couldnt resist it, after setting it up i played a couple games of Tennis.
Worked up an appetite and drove to the coast to have lunch, another beautiful sunny day, how annoying! I decided, after months of consideration, to order the Fish of the Day. It was barramundi cod fish, grilled with the skin on top of Parmesan polenta with a nice salad. I really enjoyed it and now my insane fish craving is gone.
Over lunch Colin told us that about a man that was attacked my a shark and his body hasn't been found, well that shark has been spot in many of the beaches in perth. Scaarrry.
So anyways, after lunch we went to the beach. I was too scared to go in and to top it off the waves were 40ft high. I caught some sun rays, a bit of a tan too. Mm very nice.

shark! not really

im rockin a bit of a tan here

We caught a lift to pauls mates from high school at their place, with a really nice backyard and this big day bed type couch lounge thing with far too many pillows ( in a good way ). I couldnt fight my fatigue and ended up passing out on the couch snuggled up to the many pillows.
That night we cabbed to Em's place to stay the night.

pauls mates place, couldnt get a good shot...i was being eaten by "mossies" and about to crash

The next day was Sunday and we had a quiet morning of cricket, coffee, and crumpets. Again, a sunny day. Except this time, in the mid thirties and i was already feeling my canadian intolerance to heat.
This was the Aschcroft, pauls dads side of the family, christmas lunch. I felt the most festive at this lunch. A big old victorian house, heaps of adults and children weaving in and out of the crowd, lots and lots of food and drink. I was introduced to many people, most of which i cant remember their names but it was good. Santa gave the presents to the children, food was served, and we waited the appropriate 30 minutes before getting into the salty pool. It was so refreshing and nice, but after a while i lounged on the steps half-in-half-out and sipped my corono. As you would assume, i had a bit of a tan/burn going on when i checked the mirror next.

i felt too awkward to bust out my camera and i was mostly in the pool - heres the boys b ballin'

After a long day in the sun, Naomi gave us a lift to the Little Creatures Brewery in Freemantle where we met up with some friends - ironically from Melbourne. Little Creatures is this big beautiful brewery, makes delicious beer that i wish you could all taste, and they have a restaurant/bar there sitting right on the harbour. Its beautiful. Although, it was getting a bit crowded so we went to the loft, a bar next door and had a couple drinkies and that was the night!


big beer thingies
on the padio looking at the brewery
on the deck looking out on the harbooourr
im looking for chips to put with my aioli
scotty and alex
really dark pic of paul
sunsetwaiting for our cab, i look really intense

Monday morning was really hard, we went to the store with zoe for some much needed coffee and did a nice walk of the beach. Pauls mum, jenny, picked us up for lunch and we went to another beach - Perths most beautiful apparently.


Again, we had lunch on with a view of the beach on a nice beautiful sunny, hot hot day. We ate at this lovely italian restaurant where we shared heaps of starters and i had a salad with stinky cheese. Mmm...

italian restaurant with xmas tree and sun outside

With our full bellies we went to the beach again. This time pauls mum was nice enough to watch our stuff as we swam. It was nice having Paul there cause i really have no idea what to do in the sea. I really felt the undertow pushing and pulling me, but i was excited. The waves were crashing near shore and so many people were hesitant to go in further (shark!!!) there was even a helicopter on sharkie patrol above. I was alright with jumping with the waves, but Paul taught me when to dive into the waves and how/when to swim with the waves, i really struggled with that one. I couldn't stop laughing it was so fun!


We were brainstorming what i should see on my last night, and Jenny and Paul were trying to fit Perth city in there but not exactly cause apparently its dull as. Jenny came up with a brilliant idea to watch the sunset at Kings Park overlooking the city/bay/ocean. We picked up a bottle of red, snacks, and a carpet and found our spot on the mountain. It was quite romantic and really fun.


When the streetlights came on, we took a tour through the city and met up with pauls other mate Ben. I thought it was going to be a bit of a boys club and catching up yadda-yadda-yaddda, instead it turned out to be a really good time where i found myself laughing a lot.
We got back to Naomi's and had a cheeky drink on the balcony, the stars were out and it was still very warm outside.



Our last day in perth, Tuesday. I hadn't seen Freemantle during the day and i had been told how beautiful and old the city was. We took a short train ride into the city to have breakfast. We chose this great restaurant by judging peoples foods whilst window shopping. It took a long while for our food to come but in the mean while i figured out the nine letter word, affiliate, and was chuffed. I ordered poached eggs with Mediterranean grilled veggies on toast, it was divine. The eggs were done perfectly, no one likes drippy poached eggs.
Our desert was walking through the city and doing a bit of shopping.

uncoperative paul. this is where we had brekky

After grabbing our gear from Naomis and saying our goodbyes. Colin met us at the train station where we went for tea and he gave us a lift to the airport.

I picked up some very intellectual reading material full of current world issues, Cosmopolitan. The inflight film sucked so im glad i did. I was served my main meal and took advantage of the complimentary drinks once again. This flight was just as great and i snapped some great shots landing in melbourne. I was sad when we landed though, and it was a weather shock - going from 37 to 21 is not pretty.
We picked up a bottle of Shiraz and went back to my place to end our holiday with the dark knight, brilliant.

Melbourne city at sunset from our plane window

plane rides make me think of lost?

New years eve night was nothing huge and ive never really been a huge NYE person. I had a relaxing day around the house and then paul came over after work and we had a night in watching Peep Show and watching the city fireworks through the trees and the backyard fireworks sporadically going off in the distance. Very nice.

ps. i appologize for the lack of pictures, im lazy